Game changer: Intel asked for access to AMD’s Mantle

Ah, the world of graphics… never a dull moment. AMD’s Mantle shook up the PC gaming platform when it was introduced some time ago, and since then more and more developers (right now 47 of them) are pledging support to the API. Now it seems Intel itself wants to see what the fuss is about.

Specifically, Intel asked AMD to provide access to its Mantle API in order to experiment with it – of course they are not planning to leave DirectX any time soon and Intel PR has reaffirmed their support to Microsoft’s dominant API.

At the time of the initial Mantle announcement, we were already investigating rendering overhead based on game developer feedback. Our hope was to build consensus on potential approaches to reduce overhead with additional data. We have publicly asked them to share the spec with us several times as part of examination of potential ways to improve APIs and increase efficiencies. At this point though we believe that DirectX 12 and ongoing work with other industry bodies and OS vendors will address the issues that game developers have noted.Intel PR via PC World

Richard Huddy, AMD’s Chief Gaming Scientist, also talked to PC World and commented:

I know that Intel have approached us for access to the Mantle interfaces, et cetera – and right now, we’ve said, give us a month or two, this is a closed beta, and we’ll go into the 1.0 public release phase sometime this year, which is less than five months if you count forward from June. They have asked for access, and we will give it to them when we open this up, and we’ll give it to anyone who wants to participate in this.Richard Huddy

Bear in mind that if Intel backs Mantle, it will be huge news; as of Q1 2014 and according to Jon Peddle Research, both AMD and Intel have a whooping 83,5% of the market – Steam’s Hardware Survey paints of course a different picture, with the two companies commanding a 47,24% share as of May 2014; the rest belongs to the guys at Santa Clara. Still, if Intel backs Mantle, and with AMD expanding Mantle’s availability to Linux and SteamOS, it will spearhead its adoption to many more games.